This book brings together researchers with cognitive-scientific and literary backgrounds to present innovative research in all three variations on the possible interactions between literary studies and cognitive science. The tripartite structure of the volume reflects a more ambitious conception of what cognitive approaches to literature are and could be than is usually encountered, and thus aims both to map out and to advance the field. The first section corresponds to what most people think of as "cognitive poetics" or "cognitive literary studies": the study of literature by literary scholars drawing on cognitive-scientific methods, findings, and/or debates to yield insights into literature. The second section demonstrates that literary scholars needn't only make use of cognitive science to study literature, but can also, in a reciprocally interdisciplinary manner, use a cognitively informed perspective on literature to offer benefits back to the cognitive sciences. Finally, the third section, "literature in cognitive science", showcases some of the ways in which literature can be a stimulating object of study and a fertile testing ground for theories and models, not only to literary scholars but also to cognitive scientists, who here engage with some key questions in cognitive literary studies with the benefit of their in-depth scientific knowledge and training.
Introduction: A Window on to the Landscape of Cognitive Literary Science
Emily T. Troscianko and Michael Burke
SECTION I: LITERATURE THROUGH A COGNITIVE LENS
Chapter 1: Scientific Concepts in Literary Studies: Towards Criteria for the Meeting of Literature and Cognitive Science
Marcus Hartner
Chapter 2: Towards a 'Natural' Bond of Cognitive and Affective Narratology
Caroline Pirlet and Andreas Wirag
Chapter 3: 'Annihilation of Self': The Cognitive Challenge of the Sublime
David Miall
Chapter 4: The Space between Your Ears: Construal Level Theory, Cognitive Science, and Science Fiction
James Carney
Chapter 5: Patterns of Thought: Narrative and Verse
Brian Boyd
SECTION II: COGNITION THROUGH A LITERARY LENS
Chapter 6: Simulation and the Structure of Emotional Memory: Learning from Arthur Miller's After the Fall.
Patrick Colm Hogan
Chapter 7: Cognitive Science and the Double Vision of Fiction
Merja Polvinen
Chapter 8: Fantastic Cognition
Karin Kukkonen
Chapter 9: Feedback in Reading and Disordered Eating
Emily T. Troscianko
Chapter 10: Animal Minds across Discourse Domains
David Herman
SECTION III: LITERATURE AND COGNITION IN COGNITIVE SCIENCE
Chapter 11: Embodied Dynamics in Literary Experience
Raymond W. Gibbs, Jr.
Chapter 12: How Readers' Lives Affect Narrative Experiences
Richard J. Gerrig and Micah L. Mumper
Chapter 13: On Truth and Fiction
Keith Oatley
Chapter 14: Under Pressure: Norms, Rules, and Coercion in Linguistic Analyses and Literary Readings
Alexander Bergs
Chapter 15: Affective and Aesthetic Processes in Literary Reading: A Neurocognitive Poetics Perspective
Arthur M. Jacobs
